So china expert wasnt lying when they laugh at naysayer criticizing J10 for its low payload
It's still not exceptional loadout for a fighter of its generation.
J-10 Thread IV
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
It's still not exceptional loadout for a fighter of its generation.
4 X PL15 ....plenty enough for BVR era
FriedRiceNSpice
Captain
How much effort would be involved with redesigning J-10 to be semi-stealth? Its one thing to just coat it with RAM or use the so-called meta-materials, but trying to make significant shaping changes would involve having to re-engineer just about the entire plane, with aerodynamic qualities / weight distribution affected and new FBW and flight control systems needed. And after spending that effort, you still end up with a non stealthy platform the moment you slap a bunch of munitions on it.
Rather than spending all that effort on the J-10, why not just start with a clean sheet design built around the WS-15, or even possibly even creating a single-engine design based off the FC-31 airframe.
by78
General
What thread is this?
Stealth needs to be designed from the ground up. Stuff like placement of panels, nuts and bolts, and utilization of internal space must be considered to achieve true LO.
I think they discussed this a couple of times on their podcast. The big concern is South Korea. China still has a working relationship with South Korea. The export of something like J-10A to North Korea would be seen in a bad light in South Korea. At this point, they have a lot of old J-10A airframes, they certainly do a service life extension on them and export It there. I doubt they will get much money for the North Koreans. This is just something to help an old friend.
I'm not sure why they would install AESA radar on it. It's not something the North Koreans will actually be able to maintain it. Even the original J-10A is probably much more complicated to maintain than the Koreans have ever had their hands on.
That's why they have FC-31. It will be a much better option than J-10D for export. CAC has a lot of work on their hand with J-20 improvement, 6th gen and UCAVs. There is not a lot of engineering resources available for J-10 project.
There are about 300 J-10As. Some of them will start retiring soon or join flight school and some may get sold to friendly countries like NK. I think they can do MLU on about 150 of them to both extend service life (to allow operation into 2030 to 2035 range) and add some basic upgrades.
Shilao's podcast mentioned the importance of MAWs. They should look to add that on MLU'd J-10As. They should look to upgrade EW suite and air cooled AESA radar (liquid cooled might be too big of a change). Upgrade systems to support the latest weapons. Make sure they can fire all the PGMs they have and will have. Maybe they can use the latest WS-10 engine. That would be a pretty good upgrade. You have something which can then entirely replace JH-7A in A2G roles and also have respectable A2A capabilities.
I see them procuring another 100 J-10C for PLAAF and the remaining production will be for upgrades and exports. Should keep the line going at Guizhou until about 2030.
